James McCallum . . . Physician for all seasons

Biographical sketch of James McCallum. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.

The citation for this article is: "James McCallum . . . Physician for all seasons," Pieces of Eight, October 15, 1984.

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James McCallum is a man with many titles and interests. He is a medical doctor, the ECU team physician for athletics, a pediatrician, an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics, an adjunct professor of health and physical education, and since 1981, the director of the rapidly expanding and progressive Student Health Service. But while his profession is medicine and health care, his avocation is something entirely different. He is also a first-rate historian.

"I got interested in history while serving the the Navy," says McCallum. He sits at his desk in the remodeled and freshly painted Student Health Center on campus. He speaks slowly and deliberately, his soft voice nurtured by more than 20 years of work as a pediatrician in Williamston, North Carolina.

"There was a captain who was a very opinionated person. He was very much pro-north and all he could do was ride the southern boys' backs over the Civil War," McCallum recalls. He pauses to dump ashes from his pipe into a large ash tray emblazoned with a ceramic replica of a colonial flintlock pistol.

"I just felt it could not have been that one-sided or else we in the South were the most ignorant people who ever came down the road in civilization," he says. "So I started reading about the Civil War. The more I read, the more interested I became."

Interest Branches Out

His reading branched into other areas of history and to other wars. Battles and military tactics intrigued him. Today McCallum's library contains at least 1,250 books on American history and he has written one of his own. His book, Martin County During the Civil War, was published in 1971.

He has plans for two more books. One is a novel about the Ram Albemarle, a Civil War vessel built on the Roanoke River, and the other, a non-fiction work about the Civil War rams that were built in North Carolina.

McCallum's interest in history led him to pursue hobbies in other history-related areas. He collects firearms representing each period of conflict in American history. In addition, his collection of coins includes one of the 10 best half-cent coin collections in the country. The half-cent pieces were minted from 1792 to 1854 and his collection contains all but three or four extremely rare coins that would cost from $10,000 to $100,000 to acquire.

An Early Decision

McCallum grew up in Colerain, a small town on the Chowan River in Bertie County. There wasn't much to do there, he said, except work and from the time he was 10 years old he helped his father who ran a gas station.

By age 12 he had decided what he wanted to do in life. "I wanted a profession, something that I could be in control of," he said, explaining that seeing people laid off from their jobs and hanging around his father's service station disturbed him greatly.

"Medicine was an almost saintly profession at the time and the family doctor was looked up to with as much reverence as the minister or more. I guess I wanted to emulate that plus I had a genuine concern for people," he said.

He enrolled at Wake Forest College where he pursued a general science major combining biology, chemistry and physics and minored in psychology. Upon graduation he was accepted at Bowman Gray School of Medicine.

Joins the Navy

The country was at war in Korea during the medical school term and upon graduating, he accepted a commission in the Navy, an obligation he felt was due because he had been deferred from military duty while attending medical school. He was assigned to work in radiology, a field that he found fascinating and to which he was giving serious consideration to pursuing as a specialty when he opened a general practice in the town of Drexel, his first stop following his stint in the Navy. But a pediatric residency position opened at Chapel Hill and he accpeted it after spending a year in Drexel.

"It was a toss-up between pediatrics and radiology. The thoughts at the time were that pediatrics deal with people and I was a people-oriented person, so I went into the people profession," McCallum says.

"I enjoy working with kids," he adds. "They are so open and so sincere. One of my professors made a comment one time. When he was asked why he went into pediatrics, he said he found out a long time ago that people are no good and children haven't grown up to be people yet.

"I don't wholeheartedly agree with that statement but children don't have the prejudices, problems and hangups that adults have. They can be more difficult. They can go from nothing to being extremely ill in a matter of hours in contrast to an adult where the infection is more of a progressive thing. Fortunately children get well just as quickly as they get sick," he says.

'Best of Both'

"Working with college students can be the best of both worlds," McCallum adds, explaining that while the students are adults, their ideas and feelings are carry-overs from those of a younger age which makes them easy and fun to work with.

McCallum came to ECU in January of 1981 ending a successful 20-year practice in Williamston. The ECU infirmary became the Student Health Center offering outpatient services similar to a clinic and catering to the health needs of all students, including athletes.

"I felt that athletics needed a medical program with a more personal feeling toward the athlete. The program should be concerned with how the athlete could better function as a student at East Carolina, not just as somebody playing football," he said, noting that athletes are getting care and treatment through the Health Sevice the same as other ECU students.

Areas of Concern

Another area of concern for McCallum is consolidating mental health programs on campus in order to reach more students. This plan would involve counseling programs being offered now at the Counseling Center, the Student Health Service and various academic departments that provide student counseling.

He also wants to expand the Student Health Service to provide more preventive medicine programs as well as encourage and increase outreach programs in diabetes, tuberculosis and hypertension. Plans to acquire equipment such as an X-ray unit are being made.

"I'm referrred to as the team physician for varsity athletes, but I consider myself the team physician for East Carolina . . . for al the students, he said.

McCallum cmmutes to campus from his farm in Martin County and enjoys the 35 minute ride because he gets to listen his jazz tapes which helps him to relax. He also raises quarter horses and when he finds the time, he likes to ride them too. But finding the time can be a tough job for a man with so many titles and interests.